Grateful Dead Music Forum

Perhaps "six hundred pounds of sin" should be replaced with "good doggy" ...

"Dire wolves are iconic beasts. Thousands of these extinct Pleistocene carnivores have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. And the massive canids have even received some time in the spotlight thanks to the television series Game of Thrones. But a new study of dire wolf genetics has startled paleontologists: it found that these animals were not wolves at all, but rather the last of a dog lineage that evolved in North America."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... es-reveal/

Dire Doggy?

Hmmmmmm

“The Wolf came in, I got my cards, we sat down for a game”

Maybe this was the inspiration for this classic piece of art!

hehehehe

Bill, tgo

I received my Scientific American April 2021 print edition today. The Dire Wolf article is on pages 10-12. I've sent this Letter to the Editor. The odds of it being selected to be printed are slim but one can hope!

No discussion of the dire wolf (Dire -- but not Wolves; in Paleontology) is complete sans acknowledging the canid's role in popular culture.  Perhaps the best example is the Grateful Dead's eponymous ballad from their Workingman's Dead album: "When I awoke, the Dire Wolf, six hundred pounds of sin, was grinning at my window, all I said was, Come on in."  Poetry rather than science, the lyrics showcase the popular conception of the Dire Wolf as a fearsome predator.

One doesn’t encounter “eponymous” on internet forums too often. I applaud your vocabulary skills, sir!

Bill, tgo

Nice try Jon....

Jon S. wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:35 pmPerhaps the best example is the Grateful Dead's eponymous ballad...

I'm no grammar expert but wouldn't "the Grateful Dead's eponymous ballad" actually be "(The) Grateful Dead" ? That's how I've always understood and used the word.

tdcrjeff wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:50 pm

Jon S. wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:35 pmPerhaps the best example is the Grateful Dead's eponymous ballad...

I'm no grammar expert but wouldn't "the Grateful Dead's eponymous ballad" actually be "(The) Grateful Dead" ? That's how I've always understood and used the word.

It's funny you should say this. I thought perhaps so, too, so before I sent in the letter, I looked up 5 different website's definitions of eponymous (2 of the examples below). I concluded it's correct as I used it. But maybe you're right!

In any event, my only hope to have my Letter published, considering how many Scientific American receives, is probably if both the person who serves as the initial filterer of the Letters AND the editor with the final call are Deadheads. If yes, they'll correct my errors. If not, the errors won't be the reason they filed it in the circular file.

Merriam Webster:
Definition of eponymous: of, relating to, or being the person or thing for whom or which something is named

Your Dictionary:
Eponymous meaning
ĭ-pŏn'ə-məs
Of, relating to, or being the person or entity after which something or someone is named.
Robinson Crusoe is the eponymous hero of the book.
Prince Hamlet is the eponymous protagonist of the Shakespearian tragedy Hamlet.
The language Limburgish is named after the eponymous provinces in Belgium and Holland.
Named after something else or deriving from an existing name or word.
Of, having to do with, or being an eponym.
Hamlet is the eponymous character of Shakespeare's tragic play.
The definition of eponymous is something or someone that gives its name to something else.
An example of eponymous is a person named Jackson who founded a city being the reason for naming the city Jacksonville.
An example of eponymous is a band using its name as the name for the band’s album.

... or a song about a Dire Wolf being named “Dire Wolf”.

Bill, tgo

lbpesq wrote: ↑Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:37 am ... or a song about a Dire Wolf being named “Dire Wolf”.

Bill, tgo

Yes, as in, "The definition of eponymous is something or someone that gives its name to something else." (per my online dictionary quote above). At least that's how I intended my use of it.

Sure, but there is no "dire wolf" in the sentence, so how does the reader know that eponymous refers to a dire wolf rather than the Grateful Dead?

Because, not only are we everywhere, we're pretty darn smart, too!

hehehehe

Bill, tgo